The ride between my dad's camp and Alexandria can take anywhere between three and seven hours, depending on the horse, the weather, how the walkers feel that day. I don't mind the ride. Most of my days involve a lot of people and a lot of tasks. Those people are people I care about, even people I adore, and those tasks are tasks I believe in, but even so, it can be a lot. The rides I take to visit Dad – really, the entire visits themselves – feel like a nice break. Not unlike my childhood visits felt, my every-other-weekend (kind of) visits. They were breaks, of a kind, even if seeing him wasn't always the easiest thing. Even if it isn't the easiest thing now.
No, easiest isn't the right word – simplest. That's better. No, seeing my dad, the way he is these days, where he is these days, isn't the simplest thing. Just can't be.
It's a clear day and Rabbit's a strong horse. I could push her, get home faster, but I don't. No need. I want to get home, I do – I always do, lately, which is kind of incredible – but it's a beautiful day. Cool, for a late Virginia summer, with a blue sky dashed here and there by harmless white wisps. You have to enjoy them, the beautiful days, and so through most of the ride I keep Rabbit at a trot, her hooves clapping the street in a way that would have felt too loud once. I push her faster only to avoid the occasional walker, or two, or seven – seven being the biggest group we run into today. Just seven. Not even enough to call it a herd.
That group, it's led by a walker that's just stepping onto the road when I ride by. I'm sticking to the yellow line, as is typical, and the walker – a used-to-be woman in torn camo coveralls – stumbles towards me, arms outstretched, teeth gnashing. Being a walker, basically. I give Rabbit some rein, and she, for her part, snorts in a way that mostly sounds annoyed and canters forward about fifteen yards. When I pull her back, she slows without a fight or a backwards glance. She's a few years old, Rabbit. She's as used to the world as any of us.
I glance back for the both of us, though, because I'm used to world as well, and my memory is better than Rabbit's. I've learned that the world can throw some pretty shitty surprises your way. I don't get one this time, though. The walker and its friends shamble in our wake, trying to follow, but slowly shrinking behind us. They snarl, and walkers always snarl – or groan, or moan, or growl – but in moments like this, they damn near sound angry to me. Like they know they're at a disadvantage. Like they know anything at all.
I ride on. The asphalt road I know so, so well weaves through the forest like a faded tattoo. This road, it was built for cars, naturally, but it doesn't see many these days. The old world – I mean the old old world, before the walkers, but before cars and skyscrapers, too – that world had to adapt to the world that people decided to create. And now the world that people created has had to adapt too. As have the people themselves.
Some of them. Those that could.
. . . . .
The turn happened ten years ago, and after it happened, I lived in many places. We did, I mean – my dad and me and our group, our people, our original people, some of whom are still alive, most of whom are not. We lived in many places of many kinds. Camps. Abandoned houses, abandoned anythings. A farm. A prison . . . And what all of those things had in common is that they were, to some extent, hidden. If not purposefully, then by happenstance, and without any of us fighting that. It was good to be hidden. It was safe.
The Alexandria Safe-Zone – Alexandria – is not hidden. Like the road beneath me, it was built for a different time, a fact proven by – well, by many things, but one of those things is that Alexandria was built on the road. Of course it was – it was created to be a neighborhood, after all, and neighborhoods were built on roads, on streets, streets named things like Cardinal or Oak or Cannell. And because Alexandria was built on a road, anyone who today comes along that road from either direction will run right into one of Alexandria's two gates, just as I'm about to. And in running into this gate, into either gate, they'll see the fifteen-foot steel walls stretching out into the giant field cleared so many years ago, and stretching into the woods beyond, stretching to where you can't even see them anymore. If you could see them, you would see that they don't end. Those walls circle around the entire community and meet again at the other gate. No breaks. No openings. Very, very few weaknesses.
Alexandria isn't hidden. Alexandria doesn't need to be.
Most of the time. There have been times when I wished it were, wished it could have been. But that's all in the past now. Like so many things.
When the tops of the walls and gate appear in the distance, apparently poking up from the road, Rabbit nickers in an under-her-breath way and pulls against my hold. The horses are always ready to get home. I let her lunge forward, her hooves louder than ever, no doubt alerting whoever's on gate duty.
But, a few moments later, it's clear that whoever's on gate duty must already be alert. One of our covered wagons is ahead of me, right outside the gate.
Rabbit fights me, but I slow her to a trot anyway. The hunting party. They left yesterday, a little earlier than I did. Standard overnight trip, a group of us does it nearly every week. This hunting party, however, was unique in two ways: One, I was not part of it, and two, Judith was. Judith, baby Judith, who is not actually a baby but is still Judith.
Even though Michonne didn't go out with the party, even though I didn't, Judith did, Michonne let her. Rightly, I know rightly. Michonne tries to give Judith as much independence as possible, as much practice as possible. Practice with the world. Preparation for it. And that's a decision I completely understand, a decision I completely agree with, and a decision I hate with every single part of my body and soul.
But, just beyond the wagon, I see a small, long-haired figure in a plaid shirt and a wide-brimmed hat you could easily, from this distance, mistake for a cowboy hat. It's not a cowboy hat, though. And its owner will be the first person to tell you that.
Something melts in me when I see her. It always does, and it always hardens right back up when she leaves my sight. So the cycle continues.
And, on that note - I have this bad habit. See, when I look out at a group of my people, I tend to skim everyone, skim the whole scene, until I find Judith or RJ or both. It's an understandable habit, I think, but, yeah, definitely a bad one. I sometimes wind up completely overlooking important details.
For example, today, as I near the wagon, and I finally get around to looking the whole scene over, I discover that my immediately latching onto Judith's familiar shape prevented me from immediately latching onto the multiple unfamiliar shapes of the people standing between the gate and the wagon wearing bags over their heads.
Strangers.
"Shit . . ."
I give Rabbit all the rein she wants, and she takes it gladly, bursting towards the gate and the little group in a way that is absolutely not safe and absolutely not my first concern.
The strangers – four of them, I count four as I ride beside and past the wagon and its horses – they stand in a line, facing the gate. On the far side of the line is Eugene, clothes and face dusty from the hunt, face set in a neutral way that tells me nothing because, barring extreme circumstances, that's pretty much just Eugene's face. Aaron, standing on the other side of the line, tells me a bit more with his tight-lipped, wrinkled-brow expression, one I know well, one of the first expressions I ever saw him make. Meanwhile, Rosita moves along the line of strangers, stopping at the person closest to Eugene and yanking the bag off the person's head, revealing short black hair and a dark-skinned head.
"Sydney!"
Judith is standing on her tiptoes, waving at me from beyond Aaron, from beyond the reach of the strangers, but still too close. Normally, normally, seeing Judith grin the way she is right now? Easily one of my favorite things. At the moment, however, my brain and heart are otherwise occupied, and I find Aaron's eyes – they're waiting for me – and steer Rabbit around the nearest stranger, a woman with a mess of wavy blonde hair falling down her back. I yank Rabbit to a halt. My boots are on the ground before she's stopped all the way. My bow is in my hand, though I don't remember taking it from my back. I open my mouth.
"I know," Aaron says before I can speak.
I speak anyway. "What the hell is going on?"
"Language!" Judith calls, which, believe me, is a whole different issue.
Aaron scratches his beard with the knuckles of his good hand – his real hand. "They were in trouble, one of them's injured . . ." He waves at the wagon, the seat of which is filled by Laura – our fellow Council member – whose face lets me know, in no uncertain terms, that she did not spearhead whatever movement has brought these people to our gate. Whoever's in the wagon is out of sight.
The other strangers, however, are now revealed entirely. Rosita comes to my side, her hands full of burlap, and four unknown, ruddy faces look around, look at the gate, look at us. At me.
The person whose head I saw first, the person with the short black hair, is a girl, probably my age, maybe a little older. The woman beside her has hair the same color, but longer, tight curls floating out around her head. She's black, like the girl, though her skin is a few shades lighter, and she wears a green cargo vest that reminds me of a jacket I used to have. Beside her stands a fidgeting white man, broad in the shoulders, round in the torso, sweaty face covered on the bottom by a patchy beard and on the top by dark curls that stick to his forehead. And then there's the blonde woman, the stranger closest to me. The stranger glaring at me. Her formerly-white, baggy overshirt covers a black undershirt that dips enough at the neckline to show a tattoo the size of my hand. It's detailed, intricate, but I don't recognize the shape. Her rolled-up sleeves show more tattoos, no shortage of them. Faded, of course, like my dad's.
I turn to Rosita. Her expertly-done French braids have held up better than any braid of mine ever does, contributing to her natural aura of being on top of things, of being prepared for whatever happens, an aura I have benefited from a thousand times over the past seven years and, admittedly, don't not benefit from now. But the benefit is somewhat diminished by Rosita pressing her mouth into a thin line, popping her eyebrows, and shooting her eyes towards Aaron. Mine follow.
"I know," Aaron repeats. "But –"
"I found them."
My breath catches. Judith.
Of course it was Judith.
Judith – ten years old, too big and too small at once – steps forward, thumbs hooked on her belt loops. Gone is her grin, but she doesn't look sad. She looks calm. And she sounds calm, calm and certain, as she lifts her chin and tells me, "They needed our help."
With those words – and I truly think she's unaware she has this power, I'm sure she's not doing this intentionally – but with those words, with that voice, she successfully pulls the breath from my lungs like the air is just a rope she holds and tugs. It takes a second to get the air back, and Judith, she just stands there and blinks her wide hazel eyes, waiting for me to say something. Or maybe not. Maybe she thinks we've both said all there is to say, because, after all – they needed our help.
I twist my left hand into my wrist, rotating my forearm, pressing my skin against the leather braid, against the little strand of silver.
I blame you for this.
Rosita's moved to the gate, and as it opens with a groan, I roll my head towards Aaron. "Michonne . . ." I don't want to say more in front of Judith, or the strangers, for that matter.
But it's Aaron, so I don't need to. He jerks his head down in a half-nod, then bobs it towards the gate. "Siddiq can patch up their friend, Michonne won't argue with that. From there . . . We'll deal with it. We'll talk to her."
"Oh, we'll talk to her?"
Aaron puts his hands on his hips. His metal arm catches the sunlight in just the right way to make me flinch slightly. "Mm-hmm, we will. You know, because . . . you were with me when we found them, encouraged me to bring them back here, and are therefore just as responsible as I am for the whole thing."
"You know, weirdest thing, I don't remember any of that."
"I'm remembering for the both of us." He slaps my shoulder with the back of his hand and falls back towards the gate, wide open now. Wide open to strangers. Like our gates aren't supposed to be anymore. Like Michonne said they're not supposed to be anymore . . . like I agreed they shouldn't be anymore.
I didn't mean it.
Yes, you did. In the moment, you absolutely did.
I did. Yes, I did, but . . . the circumstances were extreme.
So you don't believe that anymore?
I look at the four strangers. Alexandria lies before them. Aaron and Rosita are waiting to lead them in, but none of them have taken a step. The girl at the end of the line turns to the woman beside her and . . . makes hand motions. Eugene, not far from them, catches my eye and points at the woman. "That one is deaf."
I nod.
"The whole band appears to have highly-developed skills in American Sign Language. At least, I'm assuming it's American Sign Language, though I admit I am not familiar enough with any communication system of the hearing-impaired to confirm the particular nationality of this one."
"Uh, it is." The curly-haired pushes up on his tiptoes as he says this, falls back on his heels, pushes up again. "American Sign Language – ASL. Although, uh . . ." He twists and nods at the wagon. "Our friend back there is actually from England, so . . ." One side of his mouth rolls up into a half-grin, a nervous grin. ". . . she signs with an accent."
The tattooed woman closes her eyes and gives several quick, tiny shakes of her head. Before she can say anything, if she even planned to, the girl at the end of the line speaks up, signing as she talks. "This place can't be worse than Jones Springs."
"Just like Jones Springs couldn't be worse than Coalport," the tattooed woman says.
"Oh, God." The curly-headed man looks nauseous. "Coalport was a fossilized city of shit."
Neither of them uses sign language here, but the woman in the vest – the deaf woman – watches them speak, eyes narrowed. I haven't met a deaf person since before the turn, and I hadn't met many then, but I know deaf people can learn to read lips. Like Nick, from The Stand. The Stephen King novel. Owen's favorite.
Something twists in me, too hard and too far, but then Judith is moving towards the strangers and all my attention is sucked in her direction. "You'll be safe here," she says. "I promise."
Judith has a bizarrely soothing voice for someone her age. A bizarrely soothing presence. I mean, I've always kind of suspected that that's just the effect she has on me, but now, as she holds her hand out to the tattooed woman, the woman looks down at her with . . . well, confusion, and some surprise, but there's more there. A softness. It's the first time – in only about two minutes, but still – it's the first time I've seen the woman look anything but annoyed or wary.
The girl at the end of the line signs to the vested woman. The curly-haired man puts his weight on his toes and eyes the tattooed woman. Waiting. Her choice matters. Matters most, or just matters?
They're going in together or not all, I'm pretty sure of that. Makes me want to like them. Want to.
When the woman takes Judith's hand, something ripples through the other three. A tension vanishes. The woman allows Judith to lead her forward, and on her way, Judith slides her gaze to me and winks.